A United States Black Hawk pilot currently being investigated for drug trafficking says he’s facing religious persecution for selling and using LSD as sacrament.
By day, Kyle Norton Riester served as first lieutenant with the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. By night, he shipped orders of LSD on the dark web.
Facing serious drug charges from federal prosecutors, Riester recently asked for injunctive relief, arguing that he has every right to dispense “sacrament-grade LSD” to his “co-religionists” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Riester says his use of LSD is a religious exercise, “deeply religious and mystical in nature” which allows him “direct communion with his creator.”
But prosecutors say Riester is simply a drug trafficker who sold drugs to the highest bidder, regardless of their beliefs.
Is this a legitimate case of religious persecution by the federal government against a minority faith, or an attempt to use the trippiest “get out of jail free” card ever?
Sacrament-Grade LSD
Should Riester’s religious freedom argument fail, he could be facing significant jail time. Prosecutors say he shipped some 1,800 LSD orders over the dark web, netting him $122,000 over 11 months. Alleged buyers include undercover police officers as well as a 15-year-old.
Prosecutors say Riester’s religious freedom argument falls apart because he used the dark web to facilitate sales. The dark web is a hidden side of the internet not accessible without specific software often used for illegal, anonymous activities like drug sales. Prosecutors say that given the anonymous nature of the dark web, Riester was by definition not able to vet the religious beliefs of his buyers.
As the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia stated in a court filing, Riester “did not sell LSD in the context of a religious gathering or ritual, or to people with whom he shared spiritual experiences; he sold LSD on the dark web, a forum designed to ensure the anonymity of its users.”
Religious Persecution?
Riester says this is nothing less than persecution against a minority faith. To stop his use and sale of LSD sacrament now, he says, would cause him to "suffer irreparable harm to his conscience and religious identity."
Riester’s attorney George Lake argues his consumption of LSD is a necessary part of his “spiritual journey.” What began with mushrooms and ayahuasca, Lake says, “naturally evolved for him into LSD, [which] he found was his preferred and best method for communion with his conception of God.”
Riester began consuming LSD with his fellow faith practitioners in person, but took things online during the COVID-19 quarantine. As court filings read, Riester “adapted” during a time of “desperate need,” feeling "a moral and religious obligation to provide his co-religionists with Sacrament should they be unable to acquire Sacrament-grade LSD safely and securely.”
Riester says the operation went digital only because he was doing his part to closely follow COVID safety guidelines. In May 2024, when he was certain he didn’t need to follow COVID-era social distancing rules any longer, Riester voluntarily deleted his dark web account and ceased all online sales.
Will It Work?
From mushroom churches to weed churches and beyond, controlled substances have long been legally claimed as religious sacrament. And these churches often successfully defend their sacrament in courts, pointing to ancient traditions of Indigenous faiths using these psychedelic substances in religious rituals dating back millennia.
But is Riester’s faith sincere? Prosecutors say no, arguing that Riester only claimed he’s facing religious persecution some eight months after learning about the federal investigation against him.
And yet, Riester says his LSD sacrament is as sincere as it gets. He used it as part of “spiritual transformation and religious revelation,” court documents say,” to “promote safety, reflection, and shared religious experience."
To deny him the right to use and sell LSD, he says, is blatant religious discrimination by an overzealous federal government.
What do you think? Is Riester’s faith sincere, or is his religious freedom argument a legal hail mary? And should the government even have the right to say what is and is not legitimate religious sacrament?
29 comments
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James Trenton Smith
This is a matter of Law and not Religion, per se. However, Congress shall make no law proscribing an Institution of Religion or the free practice thereof per the 1st. Amendment. It can be argued that LSD, not found in nature, is of and pertaining to a "religious observance". It can therefore (reluctantly) be afforded 1st. Amendment protection. Legal precedent has already been set with Peyote, Mushrooms, etc. - which are found in nature. However, it would be a 1st Amendment stretch to protect the Commerce of such a thing.
This sounds more like a Drug Dealer who is using the Law to destroy the Law.
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Reverend Paula Copp
Wow! I think he’s been sampling a little too much “sacrament”…
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Colleen McAllister
This is so obviously one man's way to use and sell illegal drugs and nothing more. There is no established organization here, simply one man who claims he is doing so for religious reasons. No real religious organization would sell the elements os a sacrament to the members. Sorry I don't buy it. Pun intended.
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Patricia Ann Gross
"Real" religious organzations sell paraphrenalia to their parrishioners every day. I've been in churches that have "gift shops" that sell crosses, rosaries, and visitor guides to their building and campuses. They are rampant in most of the iconic churches throughout Europe (Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathederal, The Vatican, for example), but I've also seen them in the US. Cokesbury (a religious bookstore) sells communion kits complete with individual and single-use elements, so "selling of sacraments" by religious organizations happen all the time. That said, your point is taken, and this is stretching the concept and will likely break it.
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Robert Gagnon
Sounds like the church of Carlos Castaneda, difference being substances found in nature and what's made in the lab. Don't like the idea that heroin and meth could have spiritual value and also be exempted from the law. The fact he used the dark web where children are sold for sexual entertainment makes me question his intent. Terminating his account shows guilt, seems obvious he was profit driven not enriching lives.
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Keith D
Whence the notion that government should be mixed up in the drug trade in the first place? This guy's argument could be freedom FROM religion as much as freedom OF it.
I guess he didn't get the memo in COVID days that unless your religion is one of the big corporate ones, US Law is blind to whatever right you assert against the machine. That memo is illegal, by the way.
Is he full of malarkey? Probably. So are his prosecutors. Would i endorse what he's doing? of course not. But as indicated earlier, I also dont endorse morally blind moralistic coercive 'doo-gooders' with guns dictating to allegedly free and sovereign people.
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
The use of hallucinogenic drugs has bern a part of many religions. Whether it’s a rasta in Jamaica with weed or a Native American with peyote, you can just discount the rights of a religious group just because of its low membership. The only difference between a religion and a cult is the number of people involved. With religions that involve drugs at least it can be said that something is really actually happening.
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Steven Ferrell
He is a drug dealer, plain and simple. He needs to lose his Commission as an Officer in the Military, need to lose his ability to pilot an aircraft and needs to be charged and punished as a drug trafficker.
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Cameron Lewis
If he is a drug dealer then so is every priest, reverand or...preaching the word of God from the big book of christian myth as the true cultist they are
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Rev. Fr. Craig Goral D.D.
I agree with you Colleen and Steven. I am still trying to be recognized as s minister in Canada (Quebec). And the red tape is crazy. And i have been ordained since 1984. Sure during covid everyone was looking for ministers. I am not doing it for money.
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James Trenton Smith
The Government does not have the Authority to recognize you as a Minister. That is between You and God. So, you already are recognized. But I get what you mean.
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Rev. Fr. Craig Goral D.D.
Thanks I know that, there are 4 criteria to be recognized (and. I meet 3 of the 4, the only problem is I don’t have a church building and no congregation, I I minister to the poor and homeless, and this way they have no way of getting revenue from my work).
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Cameron Lewis
MERRY MEET my friends---Ooh hell yes, it is a religious sacrement. The native americians have been using hallucinations for how many millenia? The catholic church and it's wine?( yes Virginia i know the volume and that some use grape juice, but I also know many a priest who uses it to better be with "gawd" after mass) the use of aids to get to a better spiritual plane is an individual thing, not a government controlled vindictive practice. If you want wacky tobacco, lsd, shrooms, or anything else to get to.your v we rsion of God it is a religious practice. Again Hell, we tolerate the poisonous snake handlers I consider LSD and other hallucinagentics part of true religious server. Blessed be...
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Daniel Todd Kamm
Human beings have been having substance related "trips" and "experiences" forever... chew on a leaf, smoke something, trip on a mushroom or a botulinum leftover... please...even the oracles at Delphi were just inhaling intoxicating gasses spewing up from the bowels of the earth.
Funny how someone's "high" or "low" became so profoundly convincing to others that some regimented form of observance emerged.
One wonders if something similar might emerge from all the overdose experiences in our fast food restaurants... perhaps "White Castle" is really some refuge in the angelic realm? Or the street spot one's dealer occupies while one obtains what is needed is later known as "the Path?"
Please. Sad but true. "Just ask Alice."
Peace, man, and love..... tk
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Bond Wright
Funny (smile). Rev. Wright
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Mark Owen Harris
The frequent references to the use of peyote by the Native American Church clearly demonstrate how little non-native people know about or understand that church and it's practices. Let's start with the fact that it has been established and recognized for years. We could then talk about the fact the peyote isn't distributed to Church members outside of ceremonies. It is never sold on the dark web by the Church. To try and in away equate the actions of a drug dealer to the practices of established religions is a disservice to all faiths.
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John Riso
No one has the right to a religious right to sell LSD. That is one of the worst ones to sell and no body should be using there religion for that.
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Tecla Caryl Loup
I've taken LSD and have indeed found it to be a religious experience. Now that I'm old, I can look back and see what it did for me and my perceptions of so-called "reality". Now, whether this guy is hustling is another question, but it's not about the substance itself and what it can show you about the nature of so-called reality. Read what some of the quantum physicists are positing about the universe these days.
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Douglas Robert Spindler
It's well known LSD is one of the best religious experiences someone can have. Sad our government is precutting this servant of God. God gave man LSD for religious enlightenment.
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Nicholas J Page
Are you freaking crazy no religion or other wise should be used as an excuse to sell drugs
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Tecla Caryl Loup
I'd agree with you except religions are used as excuses or vehicles to promote all sorts of agendas. So many of those promotions are based on belief, not science--that's not to say that I think science is the end-all and be-all of creation! I guess at heart I pick my own "poison" and will die on that.
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Danielle Elizabeth Ostach
Based on past constitutional law, were he civilian, he has right to use drugs for personal religious use. The case of Peyote among the Native Americans set that precedent. That said, this does not give him the right to traffic in the drug against the law and distribution would have to be to those taking part in actual religious ceremony. He gets some and shares it with others privately in his home or effective church/temple/etc (registered building as such), he has argument. He wants to poison himself, I guess he can. He better not then drive since that would break under the influence rules.
The issues though that make his actions illegal are the following: 1) usage for religious usage does not allow violation of laws on manufacture (this is the sticky part) 2) he was selling on dark web where he had no idea who the actual buy was and was distributing not during religious ceremony to others in same worship but to random people 3) He was accepting money and remuneration which also means in addition to point 2 about the persons it was going to, was also violating law for selling and it is no longer religious. 4) and most importantly, but being active duty military, he falls under the military uniform code of Justice which is much stricter and he had agree to its rigid rules while serving when he enlisted or was accepted out of ROTC or Academy. Under the military code of justice, he is violating the law and can find himself in levenworth or other military jail for his (on top of dishonorable discharge for conduct unbecoming an officer)
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Walter J. Holbrook
Have you lost your mind
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Michael Raven Wildheart
I agree. There are many sacred herbs we have used for decades/centuries but always with the reverence it deserved. We do not make it widely known to colonizers for the simple fact that such sacred herbs would be devastated and abused. Our ceremonies are private, when we share our knowledge, it is with the understanding that these practices will be respected and honored. LSD is not a sacred herb or any other sacred substance. And it is an insult to compare true ceremonial rites to an excuse to use and potentially abuse.
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Rev Samantha Counihan
lsd isnt a sacrement nor religious act, its an illegal drug being sold on dark web also illegal act, and he sold it to a minor, i hope they lock him up
LSD may have some therapeutic value, but this is still being researched, though federal government restrictions limit and also dismiss science on both sides.
There is not yet an established religion of LSD.
If this person and his affiliates incorporated one, with reasoning why LSD is either central or essential to their religious expression, well... that is protected, isn't it?
Maybe... Native Peoples have had constant battles for substances related to sacred rites... which do not include white middle class burn-outs.
I've always suspected that substances of many kinds were at the root of many beliefs, and we can't underestimate the impact of mental health here either.
I hate when I see someone speaking in tongues or channeling this or that... and they drool....
We all have things we like and things we don't...
Peace, Out...tk
Thank you, Daniel, I agree. The science is hampered by the DEA schedule, just like Marijuana has been since the schedules were developed. It has also hampered the use of Marijuana for use by Rastafarians, which is a recognized religion in the US, but developed and practiced mostly in the Carribean. Illegal drugs, especially those with addictive qualities and no recognized therapeutic value (at least with today's current medical knowledge), have a nearly zero chance of obtaining permisison for any sort of clinical trials to determine if there is one. Marijuana is the first one that appears to be winning that battle, and is heading toward regulation/taxation the same way alcohol and tobacco are, with exceptions for those with a valid medical need. Perhaps the pharmaseutical companies can finally test it without having to jump through hoops so its medical uses (and dangers) can be scientifically studied.
Unfortunately, with the intoxicating and addictive nature of LSD, I don't see that happening there any time soon. I also don't see how a case for religious use can be made for someone who sells online and distributes by mail/FedEx/UPS. What's next? Order your [illegal] drugs on Amazon and get free Prime delivery in one day?
What??? Addictive? Who told you THAT??
I'm sorry, I misspoke. LSD does not fit the technical definition of "addictive," but can cause a psychological dependence. A person can also develop a tolerance that causes them over time to have to use higher doses to get the same effect. (addictioncenter.com and drugrehab.com) That doesn't change what I said about it being dangerous, intoxicating, and very unlikely to have the schedule changed for it any time soon.